On Monday, January 8, the Supreme Court of India restored life imprisonment for 11 men who were involved in the Bilkis Bano gang rape and murder case during the communal riots in Gujarat in 2002.
Behind the Supreme Court’s much-awaited judgement is a group of women, politicians, journalists, social activists and a former professor, who came together to file a petition against the premature release of the convicts by the Gujarat government
Roop Rekha Verma, 81-year-old social activist and former acting Vice-Chancellor of the Lucknow University, has emerged as one of the faces behind Bilkis Bano’s victory in the Supreme Court on Monday.
“Some people like me, who have been losing sleep over crimes like these, knew that we needed to come out. We knew that the only way to fight this was to approach the Supreme Court. Despite the fact that the court has disappointed us several times in the past, through discussions among like-minded friends, we decided that it was the only way,” Verma said, in a conversation with Edex Live.
Academician to an activist
From an early age, Roop Rekha Verma gained consciousness and empathy towards social issues around her. In fact, the first time Verma indulged in social work was in her early 20s when she started to take up social and communal issues around her.
“My professorial work was never totally cut off from my consciousness of social issues. At that time, there were a lot of hate campaigns spinning. It started several years before the demolition of Babri Masjid and it disturbed me a lot. Even though I was not a minority, I felt extremely threatened. The concept of India which I had always nurtured, being a product of the early post-independence era, was being demolished,” Verma expressed.
However, she made sure that social work never got in the way of her professorial duties.
“Whatever time I had left apart from my professorial work, I dedicated it to these social activities. It later turned into a larger involvement as more people started to get associated with me,” she added.
Filing the petition
When asked about what pushed her to file the petition against Gujarat government’s decision, Verma said she gave fighting for this cause a second thought, she knew she just had to do it.
“We have seen some very bad days as a country and we continue to do so. Society is becoming increasingly violent, impulsive and immune to crimes like these. This worries me a lot and I knew that someone had to stand up against the crime,” she explained.
Verma further stressed that the Supreme Court verdict has come as a ray of hope in a time when communal hatred is at its peak in the country.
“Of course, we were apprehensive, we had been disappointed by the court in the past. However, once we got to know that it was Justice Nagarathna’s bench handling the case, we gained some hope. We kept our fingers crossed throughout the hearings. I was very, very anxious the night before the judgement. Now, we are happy with the verdict. Although we are yet to see what development takes place after this, the judgement has come as a one-step victory for the society,” she said.
Continued fight for Gender Equality
This is not the first time that the former Philosophy professor has made headlines for her fight against cases of gender inequality and sexual violence.
In 2022, the professor volunteered to stand as surety to fulfil the court conditions for Kerala journalist Siddique Kappan following the bail granted by the Supreme Court in the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) case. Kappan was arrested on his way to Hathras in September 2020 to report on the incident of the gang rape and death of a Dalit girl.
Speaking about gender inequality in the country, the former educationist said, “My fight started against communal hatred in India but soon we realised that communal wars are always fought on the bodies of women, in fact, all the wars. That's when we started to focus more on gender equality issues. In the past, we have been involved in such legal cases where victims of sexual and gender-related violations have approached us.”
When asked about other legal battles that she has supported in the past, she said, “There was a highly publicised case that we fought back in 2005, the Ashiana gang rape case in Lucknow. The victim belonged to the lowest of economic sections in society, a rag picker’s 13-year-old daughter, who was kidnapped and gang raped and the boys involved in the crime belonged to influential and political families. We fought that case for 11 years and got justice for each of the culprits.”
The former professor also runs an NGO named Saajhi Duniya which focuses on communal and gender-related issues.
Message to youth
While Verma had dedicated most of her life to fighting against the communal and gender-based hatred in India, she stressed that now there is a need for youngsters to speak up against injustice more than ever.
“A very large number of people, even youth, have been affected by the active communal propaganda in the country. They refuse to see the facts. In the end, it is a question of human misery. Speaking up when you feel that something wrong is happening is absolutely necessary. If one doesn’t speak up, one kills a part of themselves. I don’t want the youth to keep killing something within themselves because even if they are breathing, they would be dead citizens. There cannot be a greater tragedy for our country,” Verma expressed.
Recognising that cyberbullying and trolling have been affecting the dissent among younger generations, the former professor advised to be careful with one’s language while sharing criticism online or offline.
“Your language need not be violent. You can just highlight that what is happening is a question of human rights, it is bad for society and the government has a constitutional duty to support them. Your citizenship gives you an active agency. Once you stand up in good numbers, no one can ignore you. There have been many examples in the past to prove this, a very recent one being the Kisan Morcha,” she added.
Curb hatred among the population
“As an academician, as an activist, and even as an ordinary citizen of India who loves this country, I would like to tell the youth that they need to look at the real truth, the real history. A version of Indian history is being told to the youth where only one specific community is being shown in the negative light and that is not entirely true,” the former professor said.
Verma stressed the need to stop the segmentation and division of population based on caste, community and gender. For this, she urged the youth to look for more authentic and impartial texts and literature instead of falling for the active communal hatred in the country.
“If women are being mistreated, it should be men’s worry too. That is the only way to show your love to the country. The idea of patriotism being propagated these days is very distorted,” she added.
